As the daughter of a medical doctor and university languages professor, Heather Moyse saw sports as extracurricular activities that served as a welcome diversion from academic life.

She reluctantly agreed to attend a bobsleigh identification camp at Canada Olympic Park in a break from studying for her Master’s degree in occupational therapy at the University of Toronto.

Never did she imagine winning Olympic gold in bobsleigh at the 2010 Winter Games in Whistler and a silver bauble from the 2013 Rugby World Cup Sevens in Moscow.

Never did she envision placing fourth in the 500-metre time trial at the 2012 Pan-American Cycling Championships in Argentina a year after taking up the sport.

And never did she fathom the opportunity in waiting to represent Canada yet again at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia as the potential brakeman for Calgary’s Kaillie Humphries.

“I started at 27,” says Moyse, who placed fourth at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy as the brakeman for Helen Upperton. “I had never lifted weights before. I had never trained. I just did sports because I loved them. I did sports because they were social and I was good at them.

“It’s kind of insane.”

Speaking of insane, Moyse in the mix to push the Canada-1 sled at the Sochi Games in spite of sitting out more than two years due to injury. Should she win the job, Humphries and Moyse can become the first women to ever repeat as Olympic champions in bobsleigh.

No wonder they call Moyse the Batman of the Canadian Olympic team. For when the country is in need, the Prince Edward Islander swoops in and takes care of business.

“Heather is an exceptional athlete,” Humphries says. “Being able to compete in all those sports at that level? She’s high-performance through and through.”

For proof, look no farther than Moyse’s pushes in training for the 2013-14 World Cup bobsled season. In spite of her two-year hiatus from the sport, she clocked two of the best times of her career.

“I’m so excited with where things are right now,” she says. “We just did testing last week, and I’m pushing even faster than I did before Vancouver.

According to the birth certificate on file with the authorities in P.E.I., Moyse is 35. And she’s less than a year removed from hip surgery.

How does she do it?

“I don’t know,” she says. “It’s kind of a bit baffling. Maybe it does have to do with cross-training in different sports. Maybe it’s from taking two years away and training completely different muscles.

“I’m a huge believer in cross-training. Maybe it was good for my body to do different things.”

Chalk Moyse up as the unofficial poster child for Canadian youngsters mixing things up instead of playing hockey, hockey hockey all year long.

“I’m a huge believer in kids not specializing in one sport too early,” Moyse says. “I see kids having to do that based on geography sometimes. I think that’s really sad.”

Much like the venerable Clara Hughes, an Olympic cyclist and speedskater, Moyse is living proof that athletic prowess in one sport can translate to another.

“Having Heather back is amazing for the program,” Humphries says. “We were able to do it in 2010. It’s going to be completely different, but trust is a huge part. Especially when things can go 100 million miles an hour, knowing that somebody has your back is great.”

The World Cup season for both the bobsleigh and skeleton athletes kicks off in Calgary Nov. 24 to 30. Humphries is the pilot of Canada-1. Jennifer Ciochetti drives Canada-2.

Moyse, Chelsea Valois and promising newcomer Ashley Shumate are in the mix as brakemen. Nothing is guaranteed.

And that’s exactly the way Moyse likes it.

“I love challenges,” she says. “If I get the honour to push Kaillie, it’s really the only way we can defend our gold medal. If I get the privilege of pushing Jenny, then it will be like the last two games where I’m pushing a pilot in her first Olympics.

“It’s really fun to see how much you can help a driver improve. It’s really fun to see how you can help someone else build the confidence to be as good as they can be on the ice.”

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